By Zhaoyang, China

When I was in my early teens, I loved watching TV dramas adapted from novels written by Chiung Yao, where the heroines were virtuous and kind, and no matter how painful or hard life got, they would stand by their husbands and families, and work tirelessly and without complaint to serve them. They were loved and admired by the audience, and they left a deep impression on me. In addition, the conditioning and education I received from my family gradually made me feel that a woman should live her life for her husband and children and take good care of the whole family, and that this was what it meant to be a good woman. After I got married, every day, aside from going to work, I was always busy cooking all the meals, and doing the washing and cleaning for my family, and I’d take meticulous care of my husband’s and children’s daily needs. Day after day, year after year, no matter how hard or exhausting it was, I never complained. My mother-in-law and husband were really pleased with me, and relatives and neighbors all praised me as a virtuous and good wife. Although I received praise from my family and compliments from people around me, I didn’t feel very happy inside. Instead, I often felt exhausted and empty due to the entanglements of my family, and sometimes I asked myself, “Is this really how life is supposed to be lived?”

In 2008, I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, and before long, I began doing my duties in the church. Three years later, I was elected as a church leader, and every day I’d have to leave early and come home late, as I was busy with church work. Sometimes when I’d come home late, my husband would be dissatisfied with me, and my mother-in-law would give me the cold shoulder. To maintain the image of a good wife and daughter-in-law that they had of me, after finishing my church work, I would go home and hurry to do housework and help my mother-in-law with chores. I was busy every day, I had no time to read God’s words, and I sometimes even dozed off during gatherings. In my heart, I knew that as a created being, I should fulfill my duties, but I also felt that a woman should be a good wife and loving mother, and take good care of the family, and that if I couldn’t take care of my family, I wouldn’t be a good woman, I’d be criticized by others, and my conscience wouldn’t let me rest. As a result, my heart was always constrained and occupied by family matters, and I couldn’t devote myself to my duties. During the 2012 National Day holiday, my child had seven days off, but at that exact time, the upper leaders invited us for a gathering, and there was church work to be implemented, so I didn’t go home for four days. Although I was at the church, my thoughts were with my family. I worried, “Will my mother-in-law be able to take good care of my child in my absence? Will my husband get angry?” My heart was never at peace, and it affected my performance of my duties. On the way home, I felt really anxious, and I was afraid that my husband would get angry at me. When I got home, no matter how my mother-in-law and husband scolded me, I stayed silent and just worked quietly, as I felt guilty since I hadn’t fulfilled my responsibilities. Later, my husband and mother-in-law saw on television the baseless rumors the CCP spread to discredit The Church of Almighty God, and grew increasingly opposed to my faith.

One night when I had just arrived home, my husband lost his temper with me, threatened to throw my scooter into a river, and he even wanted to throw away my books of God’s words. I desperately tried to grab the books of God’s words from him, and during the struggle, he slapped me several times, and hit my legs with a mop handle. My mother-in-law pretended not to see and just went back to her room. I felt utterly heartbroken. They were treating me like this just because of my faith. Later, my husband broke down in tears and apologized to me, and so I forgave him. I thought that he’d only treated me like this because I hadn’t been taking good care of the family. After that, I cautiously did my duty while trying to maintain the family. Because I could never put my heart into my duty, my duty didn’t get good results, and I was left feeling really tired. I saw brothers and sisters who, without family entanglements, were able to devote themselves to church work wholeheartedly, and I felt very envious, truly hoping that one day I could do my duty freely like them. How wonderful that would be! During that time, I often listened to the hymn of God’s words entitled, “Are You Willing to Give God the Love in Your Heart?” Every time I heard this hymn, I was moved to tears. Though I believed in God and was doing my duty, my loyalty was to my family, husband, and child. I hadn’t given my heart to God, and I hadn’t been fulfilling my duties. When I thought of these things, I felt uneasy and guilty. I felt as if I were bound by an invisible rope, torn between my duty and my family, and my heart was in great pain. So I often prayed to God, asking Him to open up a way out for me.

Later, I went elsewhere to do my duty. At that time, I was determined to do my duty properly, but before long, I found that I couldn’t put aside my husband and children, and I returned home. My heart wasn’t in my duty, and my duty wasn’t getting results, so I was dismissed. After I was dismissed, I felt really negative. I felt like I wasn’t a person who pursued the truth, and I lost my resolve to strive upward. A few months later, the leader fellowshipped with me and arranged for me to do text-based duties. I felt both nervous and happy, thinking, “This duty is an elevation from God. But if this duty becomes busier, I will be unable to come back home too often. What about my husband and children then? My mother-in-law’s also got pain in her leg, and if I’m not home all that often, who’s going to take care of them?” When I thought of these things, I lost my courage to accept this duty. I knew that this duty was hard to come by, and that if I lost it, I might never get the chance to do it again. So I prayed to God, “God, previously, I kept delaying my duty again and again to take care of my family, and this saddened and disappointed You. With this opportunity to do my duty, I want to strive to meet Your requirements, but my stature is so small, and I fear I won’t be able to get through this experience. God, please lead me and give me faith and strength.” After that, I listened to the hymn of God’s words “God Likes Those With Resolve”: “To follow the practical God, we must have this resolve: No matter how great the environments we encounter, nor what kind of difficulties we face, and no matter how weak or negative we are, we cannot lose faith in our dispositional change or in the words that God has spoken. God has made a promise to mankind, and this requires people to have resolve, faith, and perseverance to bear it. God does not like cowards; He likes people with resolve. Even if you’ve revealed a lot of corruption, even if you’ve taken the wrong path many times, or committed many transgressions, complained about God, or from within religion resisted God or harbored blasphemy against Him in your heart, and so on—God doesn’t look at all that. God only looks at whether someone pursues the truth and whether they can one day change” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Path of Practice Toward Changing One’s Disposition). God’s words gave me faith, and I was deeply moved. God didn’t look at my past failures, but rather at whether I could cherish the opportunity to do my duty and truly repent now. God likes people with resolve. I couldn’t be a coward this time, and I couldn’t disappoint God again. I was willing to cherish this opportunity to do my duty.

After taking up text-based duties, I searched for relevant words of God based on my state. I read two passages of God’s words: “People who live in this real society have been deeply corrupted by Satan. Regardless of whether they’re educated or not, a lot of traditional culture is ingrained in people’s thoughts and views. In particular, women are required to attend to their husbands and raise their children, to be a good wife and loving mother, devoting their whole lives to their husbands and children and living for them, making sure the family has three square meals a day, and doing the washing, cleaning, and all other housework well. This is the accepted standard of being a good wife and loving mother. Every woman also thinks this is the way things should be done, and that if she doesn’t then she’s not a good woman, and has violated conscience and the standards of morality. Violating these moral standards will weigh heavily on some people’s conscience; they’ll feel they’ve let their husbands and children down, and that they’re not a good woman. But after you believe in God, have read a lot of His words, understood some truths, and seen through some matters, you’ll think, ‘I am a created being and should perform my duty as such, and expend myself for God.’ At this time, is there a conflict between being a good wife and loving mother, and doing your duty as a created being? If you want to be a good wife and loving mother, then you cannot do your duty full time, but if you want to do your duty full time then you cannot be a good wife and loving mother. What do you do now? If you choose to do your duty well and be responsible for the work of the church, loyal to God, then you must give up being a good wife and loving mother. What would you think now? What sort of discord would arise in your mind? Would you feel like you’ve let down your children, your husband? Where does this feeling of guilt and unease come from? When you don’t fulfill the duty of a created being, do you feel like you’ve let God down? You have no sense of guilt or blame because, in your heart and mind, there isn’t the slightest hint of the truth. So, what do you understand? Traditional culture and being a good wife and loving mother. Thus the notion of ‘If I’m not a good wife and loving mother, then I’m not a good or decent woman’ will arise in your mind. You’ll be bound and fettered by this notion from then on, and will remain so by these kinds of notions even after you believe in God and do your duty. When there is a conflict between doing your duty and being a good wife and loving mother, while you may reluctantly choose to do your duty, possessing perhaps a little loyalty to God, there’ll still be a feeling of unease and blame in your heart. Therefore, when you have some spare time while doing your duty, you’ll look for chances to take care of your children and husband, wanting to make it up to them even more, and think it’s fine even if you have to suffer more, as long as you have peace of mind. Is this not brought about by the influence of traditional culture’s ideas and theories about being a good wife and loving mother?” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). “What does God mean when He says that ‘God is the source of man’s life’? It is to make everyone realize this: Our lives and souls all come from God and were created by Him—not from our parents, and certainly not from nature, but given us by God. Only our flesh was born of our parents, as our children are born of us, but their fate is entirely in God’s hands. That we can believe in God is an opportunity given by Him; it is ordained by Him and is His grace. There is therefore no need for you to fulfill your obligation or responsibility to anyone else; you should only fulfill your duty to God as a created being. This is what people must do above anything else, the main thing that should be done as the primary affair of one’s life. If you do not fulfill your duty well, you are not a qualified created being. In the eyes of others, you may be a good wife and loving mother, an excellent housewife, a filial child, and an upstanding member of society, but before God you are one who rebels against Him, one who has not fulfilled their obligation or duty at all, one who accepted yet did not complete God’s commission, one who gave up halfway. Can someone like this gain God’s approval? People like this are worthless” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). God’s words made me understand that I had always believed that a woman should attend to her husband, raise her children, and be a good wife and loving mother. These ideas and views come from Satan. Satan instills in people the view that a woman should spend her life at home, serve her family, and orient her life around her husband and children, and if she doesn’t take good care of them, she isn’t a good woman. I had been living with this idea and view, and though I was well aware that believing in God and doing my duty is perfectly natural and justified, and what a created being should do, while doing my duty, I kept thinking about everything at home. Whenever I had some free time, I would busy myself with family matters, and I even sacrificed my time for devotionals and for reading God’s words. I had no sense of burden for my duty, and I delayed the church’s work. Though I seemed to be doing my duty, in my heart, I was thinking about my husband’s and child’s daily lives, and if I did something even slightly wrong, and I saw my husband unhappy, I’d feel that I hadn’t fulfilled my responsibilities. Even though my husband hit me, scolded me, and wanted to throw away my books of God’s words, and even though my mother-in-law mocked and scolded me, I didn’t hate them. Instead, I just felt that I was just failing to fulfill my responsibilities and not being a good wife and loving mother. In reality, in His words, God has never required women to be good wives or loving mothers. What God asks is that we pursue the truth, do the duty of a created being well, and complete our responsibilities and mission. I didn’t understand the truth, and treated Satan’s fallacies as the truth, to the extent that I considered being a good wife and loving mother as a proper thing to do, and I treated the performance of the duty of a created being as something extra. I didn’t feel any kind of indebtedness or unease for not doing my duty well, but when I didn’t take good care of my family, I felt that I was letting them down. It turned out that my views and ideas were the problem. Human life comes from God, and God arranged for me to be in this world with responsibilities that I should fulfill and a mission that I should accomplish, not to live for my family or relatives. If I lived to be a good wife and loving mother, and to take good care of my family, and I couldn’t even do the duty I should have been doing, then I would be an utterly selfish person, and a person whom God hates and is disgusted by. Over the years, I’d wasted so much time trying to be a good wife and loving mother, and I’d lost many opportunities to do my duties. I couldn’t live like that anymore. Later on, I consciously put my heart into my duty, and sometimes when I thought about things back home, I’d pray to God and ask Him to protect my heart so that I could prioritize my duty, and before I knew it, my heart would quiet down. Occasionally, I would go home to help sort things out, and no matter what my husband or mother-in-law said, my heart no longer felt constrained.

In June 2015, I went away to do my duty. In the past, when doing my duty at my hometown, I’d been able to return home after some time, but this time, I hadn’t gone back for several months. As the weather was getting colder, I started to worry, “How are my husband and child doing? Are my parents in good health?” Thinking about these things, I became uneasy again and wanted to return to my hometown to do my duty. I realized that thinking this way wasn’t right, so I prayed to God, asking Him to protect my heart. Later, I read God’s words: “You should pursue all things beautiful and good, and you should obtain the reality of all positive things. You should be responsible toward your life, and you must not take it lightly. People come to the earth and it is rare to encounter Me, and it is also rare to have the opportunity to seek and to gain the truth. Why would you not prize this beautiful time as the right path to pursue in this life? And why are you always so dismissive toward the truth and justice? Why are you always trampling on and ruining yourselves for that unrighteousness and filth that toys with people?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Words for the Young and the Old). God’s words really inspired me and gave me the correct goal in life. The fact that I’d been able to accept God’s work of the last days and have the opportunity to do my duty in the expansion of the gospel was a blessing upon me, and even more so, God’s exaltation of me. I thought about how Peter spent his life seeking to know and love God. When God entrusted him to shepherd the flock, he felt God’s love and trust in him, and he became even more willing to pursue the truth and give his all to satisfy God. In the end, he was able to be crucified upside down for God, and he bore resounding testimony and met with God’s approval. Peter’s life was most meaningful. Now is the most crucial time for the expansion of the gospel, and I had to follow Peter’s example, cherish my chance to do my duty, put all my energy into pursuing the truth, and fulfill my duty for the expansion of the kingdom gospel. After that, I was no longer as constrained by family matters in doing my duty, and I felt much more relaxed.

Later, I read more of God’s latest words, and I gained further insight into the traditional cultural ideas about virtuous women, and good wives and loving mothers. God says: “Easterners want women to always be well-behaved, to embody the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, to be virtuous and gentle—for what purpose? To make them easy to control. This is a malignant ideology which has grown from traditional Eastern culture, and it is actually harmful to people, ultimately leading women to live lives without direction or ideas of their own. These women don’t know what they should do, how to do it, or what actions are right or wrong. They even offer their lives to their families, but still feel they haven’t done enough. Is this a type of harm to women? (Yes, it is.) They do not even resist when their own rights, the rights they should enjoy, are taken away. Why don’t they resist? They say: ‘It’s wrong to resist, it’s not virtuous. Look at so-and-so, they do so much better than me and have suffered much more, yet they never complain.’ Why would they think like this? (They’re influenced by traditional cultural thinking.) It’s this traditional culture which has taken root deep within them, and caused them great suffering. How are they able to tolerate this kind of torment? They know full well that this kind of torment is painful, that it makes them feel helpless and hurts their hearts, so how can they still take it? What is the objective reason? That this is their social background, so they can’t break free, but only meekly resign themselves to it. This is also how they subjectively feel. They don’t understand the truth, or how women should live with dignity, or the correct way for women to live. No one has told them these things. As far as they know, what is the criterion for women’s comportment and actions? Traditional culture. They think that what has been passed down through the generations is right, and that if someone violates it, then their conscience should be condemned. This is their ‘criterion.’ But is this criterion actually right? Should it be put in quotation marks? (Yes, it should.) This criterion isn’t in line with the truth. No matter how approved of or favorable someone’s behavior is under the control of this type of thinking and viewpoint, is it actually a criterion? It’s not, as it goes against the truth and humanity. For a long time, women in the East have had to take care of their whole families, and they’ve been responsible for all the little trivial matters. Is this fair? (No, it’s not.) Then how can they tolerate it? Because they are bound by this kind of thinking and viewpoint. Their ability to tolerate it indicates that, deep down, they are 80% sure that it is the right thing to do, and that if they just endure, then they’ll be able to meet the standards of traditional culture. So, they are running toward that direction, toward those standards. If, deep down, they thought it was wrong and that they shouldn’t do it, that it wasn’t in line with humanity, and that it went against humanity and the truth, could they still do it? (No, they couldn’t.) They would have to think of a way to get away from those people, and to not be their slaves. But most women wouldn’t dare do this—what do they think? That they could survive without their community, but that they’d bear a terrible stigma if they left, and suffer certain consequences. After weighing it up, they think that if they were to do it, their colleagues would gossip about how they weren’t virtuous, society would condemn them in certain ways and have certain opinions about them, and all this would bring serious consequences. In the end, they mull it over and think, ‘It’s better just to tolerate it. Otherwise, the weight of the condemnation would crush me!’ This is how Eastern women are, down through the generations. What must they endure behind all these good deeds? The deprivation of their human dignity and rights. Are these thoughts and views in line with the truth? (No, they aren’t.) They’re not in line with the truth. They have been deprived of their dignity and human rights, and lost their integrity, their independent living and thinking spaces, and their rights to speak and express their own desires—everything they do is for those people at home. What is their purpose in doing this? To meet the standards required of women by traditional culture, and to have other people praise them, calling them good wives and good people. Is this not a kind of torture? (Yes, it is.) Is this way of thinking proper or distorted? (It’s distorted.) Is it in line with the truth? (No, it isn’t.)” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Eight: They Would Have Others Submit Only to Them, Not the Truth or God (Part Three)). After reading God’s words, my feelings had truly been confirmed. I was exactly the kind of person God exposes as having been deeply harmed by Satan’s traditional culture. Ever since I was young, the images of virtuous and gentle female protagonists in TV dramas had left a deep impression on me. Coupled with my parents’ education and the conditioning of views from society, my thoughts had become completely confined. I took being a good wife and loving mother, and attending to my husband and raising my child, as the standards that I had to meet as a woman, and I held to these matters as positive things. I spent my days subserviently tending to my husband and family, living only to take care of my family members’ daily lives, and I lived without any integrity and dignity, yet thinking this to be noble. Over the years, to maintain my image as a “good woman,” even when I heard God’s words and knew they were the truth, I didn’t dare to boldly pursue them. Even when I tried to do my duty, it was always under the precondition of not interfering with the life of my family, and as soon as I couldn’t take good care of my family, I started to feel uneasy, thinking I was letting them down, and I’d hurry to think about ways to make it up to them. To me, abandoning my duties was preferable to not taking care of them. In reality, both my husband and mother-in-law are adults, and by this point, my child was already in junior high, so they were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. But I still worried, and I always felt it was wrong for me not to take care of them. I repeatedly put aside church work, and I put aside the life entry of my brothers and sisters. I’d been truly both hateful and pathetic! Believing in God and doing our duties is perfectly natural and justified. It was clear that my family was resisting God and keeping me from doing my duties, but instead of discerning them, I even thought I was at fault for not taking good care of them while doing my duties, and I felt guilty. I finally saw that these traditional cultural ideas are really harmful to people, and that they had completely distorted my thinking, making me unable to tell black from white and right from wrong. Satan uses traditional cultural ideas of being a good wife and loving mother, and the Confucian values, to mislead us, causing us to believe that women must take on a position of inferiority in the family and to live like slaves to others, thereby stripping women of their free will and right to exist. This is a means of controlling and trampling on women. I just couldn’t see through these things, which was why I kept being harmed and controlled by these traditional cultural ideas, and why I repeatedly delayed my duties, lost my resolve to pursue the truth, couldn’t do the duties I was supposed to be doing, and lived without any integrity and dignity. If this continued, I would just end up being eliminated by God when His work ends. Realizing these things, I became willing to reject Satan from the bottom of my heart, and no longer live by these traditional cultural ideas.

I then read more of God’s words. “God created free will for mankind, and what are the thoughts that come from this free will? Are they in line with humanity? These thoughts must be in line with humanity at the very least. Aside from this, He also meant for people to have accurate views and understandings of all people, events, and things in the course of their lives, and to then choose the right path to live and worship God. Life lived in this way is given by God and should be enjoyed. People, however, are restricted, bound, and distorted by these so-called traditional cultures and moral scriptures their entire lives, and ultimately become what? They become the puppets of traditional culture. Isn’t this caused by people not understanding the truth? (Yes, it is.) Would you choose to walk this path in the future? (No, I wouldn’t.) … So, how should you act? (In line with the principles.) Of course it’s right to act in line with the principles, and you should treat everyone in line with the principles, treating them as brothers and sisters if they believe in God, and as nonbelievers if they do not. There’s no need to wrong yourself, distort your integrity, or give up your dignity and rights by sacrificing your life for them. They don’t deserve it. There is only One in this world who’s worth spending your life for. Who is it? (God.) Why? Because God is the truth, and His words are the criterion for man’s existence, comportment, and actions. As long as you have God, and God’s words, then you won’t deviate, and you’ll be accurate in how you comport yourself and act. This is the ultimate effect that God’s words achieve on someone once they’ve been saved” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Eight: They Would Have Others Submit Only to Them, Not the Truth or God (Part Three)). God’s words really brightened my heart. God arranges marriage for people so that people can fulfill their responsibilities in the family, not to make people slaves, and much less to make anyone live for someone else. In marriage, both husband and wife have their own responsibilities and obligations, and neither needs to cater to the moods of the other. No matter what role I play in my marriage and family, that is simply a responsibility I should fulfill. When church work is not busy, I can fulfill my responsibilities as a wife and take care of my family’s daily needs. But when my duty becomes busy and I don’t have time to go home, I should prioritize my duty. After understanding these things, I felt a great sense of liberation and freedom in my heart. It was as if a window in my heart suddenly opened, filling me with brightness.

It is God’s words that have led me to break free from the bondage and harm caused by the traditional idea of “being a good wife and loving mother”; now I’m able to fulfill my duty in the expansion of the kingdom gospel—this is the greatest blessing of my life, and it is what gives my life value. Thank God!